- 3 groups of race
- Negroid
- Mongoloid
- Caucasoid (Black, Asian, and White)
- Physical differences between groups are skin color or hair texture due to geography
- Closer to the poles: less melanin and lighter skin; closer to the equator: more melanin and darker skin
- Race: category based on real or perceived biological differences between a group of people
- More Social
- Not based on biology
- Ethnicity: based on common language, religion, nationality, history, or some other cultural factors
- Social
- Aooalachia JD Vance: Hillybilly Elegy
- Characterized the Scotch-Irish as a tight-knit and loyal group with traditional family values,
evangelical Christianity, and conservative politics
Ethnic Options: symbolic and situational ethnicity
- Symbolic ethnicity: enactments of ethnic identity that occur on special occasions
- Situational ethnicity: deliberately asserting our ethnicity in some situations while downplaying it in
others
- Cost-benefit analysis
The US population by race
What is a minority
- Minority: people who are recognized as belonging to a social category (racial or ethnic) and suffer from
unequal treatment as a result of that status
- Denied the access to power and resources generally accorded to others in the dominant groups
- Racist beliefs and suffering from social disadvantages
Racism in its many forms
- Racism: an ideology or set of beliefs about the claimed superiority of one racial or ethnic group over
another, provides this support; it is used to justify unequal social arrangements between the dominant
and nondominant group
- Rooted in the assumption that differences among groups are innate or biologically based
- Negative view of cultural characteristics
- One group presumes they are better than the other
- BLM
- Skepticism about whether negative racial attitudes are changing in America
Prejudice and Discrimination
- Prejudice: prejudgment about a particular group of people that is rooted in generalizations or
stereotypes
, - Example: all Asians are good at math
- Internalized racism: minority groups being prejudiced against themselves
- Socialized into the values and norms of society
- Sometimes leads to discrimination-> an action or behavior that results in the unequal treatment of
individuals because of their membership in a certain social group
- Ex: a person getting turned down for a job because they are black
- Merton: people can be prejudiced but not discriminate-> timid bigot
- Implicit bias: unrecognized or unconscious prejudices and stereotypes that shape our interactions with
others
- Individual discrimination: when 1 person treats others unfairly because of their race/ethnicity
- Institutional discrimination: (systematic) and widespread and occurs when institutions practice
discriminatory policies that affect whole groups
- Richard Rothstein:
- Studied century of housing policy
- Federal Housing Authority enacted policies that excluded African Americans while benefiting
whites
- The color of law: refusal for blacks to get mortgages
White nationalism
- The belief that the nation should be built around a white identity that is reflected in religion, politics,
economics, and culture
- Joe Feagin-> why racism today remains extensive, foundational, and systemic
- Arlie Hochschild
- Interviews, focus groups, and participant observation research for her study of Tea Party
supporters in rural Lou
- Strangers in their own land-> how blue-collar whites see themselves as waiting in line for the
benefits of American life and view immigrants and other nonwhite groups as line cutters-> those
who don't deserve those benefits and are stealing them from those that do deserve them
White privilege and color-blind racism
- Privilege: unearned advantage accorded to members of a dominant social group
- Class, race, gender, sexuality, or other factors
- Peggy Mc-> unpacking and the invisible knapsack of white privilege
- WP: whites in society enjoy certain unearned advantages not available to nonwhites
- Easier interactions with authority figures
- Eduardo Bonilla-> color-blind racism: the misguided belief that we live in a society where racial
prejudice and discrimination no longer exists
- Race consciousness: awareness of the importance of race in our everyday lives and dealing with social
institutions
- Recognizes that despite civil rights, race is still a powerful factor
Microaggressions
- Subtle racism, small-scale racial slights, insults, and misperceptions that play out in everyday
interactions
- White vs minority
- Ex: what are you?
- Body language-> woman clutching her purse walking past Latino men
Cultural appropriation